The Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary of the UK have announced that the UK military will opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights, justifying this proposal by arguing it will protect soldiers from ‘vexatious claims’. Further, the Ministry of Defence has indicated that the Iraq related claims alone have cost the department over £100m.
One can see why this point of view would make sense; the last thing our veterans who have risked their lives for the security of their country need is to be put under investigation for crimes they never committed, and this is what the PM wants to portray in saying “I think they should know that Government is on their side.” Additionally, if the Iraq Historic Allegations Team’s (IHAT) numbers are to be trusted, approximately 1,500 cases are being investigated in relation to the abuse of Iraqis by British soldiers; such occurrences are more common than expected.
In other words, as Sir Michael Fallon himself put it, ‘it has caused significant distress to people who risked their lives to protect us (and) it has cost the tax payer millions,’. Furthermore, the idea that some people ‘level false charges against our troops on an industrial scale,’ is certainly a frustrating one, however, legal scrutiny of the military is necessary in order to both deter soldiers from committing acts of abuse and in order to compensate victims of such acts. Additionally, such scrutiny is also advantageous to the soldiers themselves, who can be reassured that what they are doing is right. So far at least, no soldiers have been prosecuted as a result of any IHAT enquiries; if a soldier is falsely accused, whilst the inquiry may be stressful, they should (and so far have) conclude it vindicated.
If military soldiers need not follow the ECHR, then they are technically at greater liberty to commit unacceptable acts, and considering the way individual soldiers have behaved in the relevant wars, such greater liberty should not be allowed. For example, “wetting” was a reportedly widespread punishment used by British troops on suspects of looting in Iraq during the occupation, this involved throwing youths into rivers and did in some cases, result in drowning. Saeed Shabram (an 18 year old Iraqi civilian), was one such victim drowned as a result of wetting. Not only is the mistreatment of civilians by troops an unacceptable crime against civilians, it does nothing to help the UK Military’s international reputation. Our nation has always attempted to uphold a liberal and just reputation, our troops not being held accountable for the abuse or wrongful killing of civilians will not convey what we would ideally like to be conveyed. Moreover, if the level of scrutiny of such acts is reduced by the state, the international community no longer views them as isolated acts of a finite number of individuals, they will see a Government which does not discourage war crimes as it should and will believe that such an ethos is institutionalised. The state must regulate actions in order to maintain a standard or else we could potentially see the number of individual war crimes increase, and the proportion of war crimes being sanctioned decrease.
Of course, the Prime Minister also added that ‘credible allegations of criminal behaviour,’ will be investigated, and that the UK Military will still answer to other conventions (the Geneva Convention) in order to maintain the necessary standard of protection for civilians in occupied territory and to maintain the United Kingdom’s reputation as a liberal country. If opting out of the ECHR simply removed the possibility of ‘legal witch hunts’ on innocent troops and still held the guilty to the same level of accountability then this move would be beneficial, however the Geneva Convention (being far older, mostly) is not as thorough as the ECHR, and does not protect the individual’s rights as effectively. Additionally, only ‘grave breaches’ of the Convention are considered war crimes and are treated exceedingly seriously, these being the worst of offences, such as killing, torture and the taking of hostages, the ECHR adds a greater range to human rights violations and holds smaller scale violations to greater account.
What arguably deflates the Government’s official position and reasoning on the matter is the potential ulterior motive of removing the MoD’s accountability on a wider scale. In 1995, British soldier, Cheryl James, was found dead at Deepcut Barracks in 1995; her father, Des James, who, with the help of the campaign group Liberty, managed to secured an inquest for her, claimed that the ECHR was crucial in doing so. The initial inquest into Cheryl’s death during training was only an hour long; the MoD did not go into any detail and decided not to pursue the matter any further. Mr James was able to use the ECHR to have crucial evidence released. As Mr James put it, ‘the Government has a short memory.’ This highlights the flip side to the Prime Minister’s argument; not only are soldiers not held accountable to ECHR law, but they themselves are no longer protected by it. What is also worth mentioning is that ECHR related disputes can be tried in the UK in the first instance. The Geneva Convention must be tried in The Hague. Whilst this may not affect foreign victims, it would prevent a further obstacle for wronged troops, reducing ease of access to justice. Clearly, it would become far more difficult for soldiers or their families to obtain justice for governmental wrongs in the future if soldiers lost the rights that the ECHR provided for them.
I would also add a comment on the ‘bigger picture’ that seems to have been developing in recent months. Many notable Government policies that will be enacted are plans to dismantle relatively recent/modern policies. Departing from the European Union, scrapping the Human Rights Act, opting the military out of the ECHR, repealing the ban on new grammar schools and dissolving the DECC seem to be leading down the road of regression; reverting back to past standards at the expense of Government accountability and civil rights. These all seem to give Parliament a lot more power. Whilst ‘self-autonomy’ could be seen as an advantage, a nation’s sovereign body having too much power can mean that they no longer have to work in the public interest, and do not have to answer to anyone for behaving as such. The Government has given/will (or at least seemingly will) give itself discretion to minimise the criteria for war crimes, arrest suspects with little/no evidence against them, remove protections from its own soldiers, open selective schools and imply a relaxed attitude to issues that concern millions of its citizens (such as climate change). Essentially, we are seeing a philosophical shift from the previous small state neoliberal tendencies towards big state authoritarianism, which is, frankly, not a shift I am personally comfortable with.